STEVE HARKNESS Health and safety consultant and lead fire risk assessor at Carney Consultancy.
Can you tell us about Carney Consultancy?
Established in 2002, Carney Consultancy is a specialist health, safety, environmental and quality consultancy and training provider for the construction and engineering sectors.
Why do you enjoy working at the company?
Having met Angela Carney (and Dave Carney before his retirement) as our consultants during my previous employment as a contracts manager, we just seemed to click and had a lot in common in relation to thoughts on Health & Safety. I was already on my way to completing an industry recognised diploma in Health & Safety, so to move to Carney Consultancy seemed a logical career progression and I have never looked back. I was actually the company’s first health and safety consultant.
I share the same values as managing director, Angela Carney in relation to how a business should operate, provide good quality customer service and how it should look after its staff – after all they are your best commodity.
What is your role?
My main role is conducting fire risk assessments for both our commercial client base and several property management companies across the North East and Yorkshire. Having also held several site management/contracts management positions and being a Director of my own company, I am also a CITB Approved Training Instructor and deliver various construction management training courses and I always enjoy the interaction with the management candidates. It also helps keep you abreast of new working practices.
Can you tell us more about your role as a lead fire risk assessor?
The role is to undertake fire risk assessments and advise our client base and private property management companies of any shortcomings in their legal obligations from a fire safety perspective. As part of the company’s aims and objectives, the role of “lead” fire risk assessor is also to train my team so that the experience I have gained over the years is transferred to other members of staff.
Have you had experience working elsewhere and how did it compare?
I’ve been lucky that since 1987 onwards, the majority of my employers were open to employees improving their career prospects and were always fair and reasonable with their employees. Whilst I enjoyed my career in the more mainstream construction, after thirty plus years it was time for a change of direction and I now really enjoy my role at Carney Consultancy. I expect that I will continue with the company until I retire.
What is your proudest business achievement?
The development of others. I was lucky in that previous employers and Carney Consultancy, were willing to take a risk in employing others, including myself, and help to assist in my career development. Once I was in management position, I was able to influence some employer decisions, so I’ve always tried to get the same opportunities for others. It is always heartwarming when a former colleague thanks you for helping them achieve their goals, that’s always a nice gesture.
How has the industry changed since you began your career?
Like a lot of people who worked throughout the early 1980s, the mindset in construction, and some workplaces, was totally different, with little regard to workers’ rights and health and safety and that is borne out by poor statistics from that era. It’s to the credit of a lot of good industry professionals that the mindset has changed over the years. There is now a greater acceptance to protect the workforce’s physical and mental health.
However, construction as an industry is still not without its challenges and although some will disagree, there is a good argument for reverting to some roles that were abandoned in the past, such as the clerk of the works. Back in the day, if you had a clerk of the works on your project, they checked and dictated the quality of the workmanship and in my opinion it’s the lack of checks on quality that has led to the industry’s reputation being damaged, a typical example is the Grenfell Tower disaster and the cladding scandal.
What do you think are the opportunities going forward?
The way the company is structured with a clear succession plan for when older members of staff like myself retire, means Carney Consultancy can continue long into the future, which would be a good testament to Angela’s original vision for the company – that it continues her legacy into the future.